NM AU, one shot: Bella and Jake spend time together rebuilding the bikes she found. Sam is always there watching them both. Jake hates it but Bella… she remembers him finding her in the forest. Then at a party, Sam kisses her. Jake is furious, Bella intrigued. Why would Sam want her?

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Name of beta/pre-reader: Bansidhe and feebes86

Pairing: Sam/Bella.

Summary: NM AU, one shot: Bella and Jake spend time together rebuilding the bikes she found. Sam is always there watching them both. Jake hates it but Bella… she remembers him finding her in the forest. Then at a party, Sam kisses her. Jake is furious, Bella intrigued. Why would Sam want her?

[AN: I was so saddened this week by the closure of both Jacob black n pack (jbnp) and Freedom fanfic writers (fffw) and then in some perverse brain spasm I wrote a completely fluffy Sam and Bella fic. Made me feel better. Consider it a gift. Will it be extended you ask? *eye roll* you always ask that… lmao.]

It was the way he watched her.

He was always watching her.

She had never been very aware of her own body that was why she fell over and ran into door jambs all the time. But he made her aware of herself.

She suddenly was aware that her legs were uncrossed or that her hand was playing with that curl at the nape of her neck or that she ran her hand through her hair too often when she had to speak, and she made a constant huffing noise at the end of her sentences. She really needed to stop doing that.

Every time she looked up his dark eyes were focused on her.

She thought she must be imagining it. It was so obvious to her that she wondered that everyone else didn't notice.

The first time he smiled at her, she looked behind her to check that he wasn't smiling at someone else. She turned before she had realised what she had done.

And then she looked back for his reaction.

He blinked incredibly slowly. It was so predatory that it made her shiver. But the very edge of his mouth twitched. It was infinitesimal, but she noticed.

And then he winked at her.

She nearly gasped.

"Bella?" Jake asked.

"Sorry, Jake… um… what did you say?"

"Is Sam upsetting you?"

"S-Sam? Is that his name?"

"You know Sam… remember he found you-" Jake stopped.

Right. Sam had found her when he had dumped her. Of course she remembered that. She had a vague memory of being warm and him carrying her effortlessly through the forest and then handing her over to her father. Sam had been shirtless at the time. Shirtless. She was half dying of hypothermia from the cold and he didn't even wear a shirt.

She remembered all that warm muscled flesh pressed against her frozen cheek.

She had another vaguer memory of a large black animal sniffing at her.

"He watches me, too," said Jake, interrupting her thoughts.

"Who?" she asked as if she didn't know.

Jake gave her a look. "He's old," he said. "Just twenty."

"Wow. That's so old."

She glanced up at Sam again. He looked amused.

"Really old," she added. "He's probably got grey hairs."

"Don't be ridiculous. Even my father doesn't have grey hair."

"And he's really old," they chorused.

They laughed, and when she glanced his way again, he was gone.

Jake suggested they go to a rez party. He was pretty excited about it. Their fathers were away fishing and trusted them to behave themselves. Bella thought that a party was the last thing she wanted to do, but Jake talked her into it. They'd just go for a little while.

They stood in a corner and she nursed a bottle of water. Her father had drilled into her for years not to drink the punch, don't take a drink from someone that you don't open yourself and so on.

Jake tried to talk to some older boys, but they pretty much burnt him off. Then she saw Jake's usual partners in crime approaching; Quil and Embry. Quil winked at her as he always did. She was sure he did it to irritate Jake. She knew he liked her; more than as a friend but he kept his distance so she didn't have to deal with it. She liked Jake a lot, but she had never thought of him as anything other than her friend. Jake went over to talk to them and left her alone.

The boys talked to Jake for a while and she stared at the floor and felt bored and a little bit lost.

"Need rescuing?"

That deep voice was so familiar to her. In her dreams it asked her if she had been hurt.

Sam. He was holding a cup of the punch in his hand. At least he had a shirt on tonight.

"No." That sounded too abrupt. "Thank you," she added.

He offered her his punch cup but she shook her head. He glanced up at the three boys, then reached down and grabbed her hand. "Come here," he said.

Dumbly, she followed him around the corner and into the hallway.

It happened so fast she didn't even know how it had happened. He put his cup down on a table in the hall and held her head firmly in both his hands. He tilted her face up to his and he stared at her intently as if he was checking if she had something stuck in her eye.

She opened her mouth to ask him what on earth he was doing and then his mouth descended and he was kissing her.

The last man she had kissed had been Edward Cullen and he was cold and hard like marble. He had never kissed her with an open mouth and she hadn't really understood how much Edward's lips hadn't moved. He had been the only guy she had ever kissed. Sam was hot and wet and soft. And strong. He tasted like alcohol and something else she couldn't identify. She kissed him back for a few seconds before she made a small, wounded noise in the back of her throat and tried to push him away. She couldn't understand why she had kissed him back.

His mouth moved to her ear and then her neck. He crushed her in against his body as his lips worked at her skin. She was still not fighting him off very well.

Two other men appeared silently and quickly behind Sam. If Bella had remembered, she would have recognised them from that same night when she was lost.

The men faced off with Bella and Sam in the centre. The hallway suddenly felt incredibly small and incredibly angry. She didn't know what made her say it, but she said, "It's okay, Jake, he only did it to make you angry." She pushed Sam's arm away from her. "I don't mean anything to him," she added.

She stepped towards Jake and grabbed his arms; they were shaking, almost vibrating. "Let's go. Come on, Jake," she encouraged when he didn't move.

He glared at Sam. Quil looked just as annoyed.

"Jake?" she asked.

Embry tugged at his shirt and Jake blinked and seemed to come back to himself.

"Leave the hall monitors on steroids," Embry said.

"Yeah," Quil agreed.

They left. Bella could breathe again once they got out of the house.

Sam wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and took a swig of his punch.

"She's wrong about one thing, though - she does mean something to you."

"Shut up, Paul!"

That night Bella and Jake watched movies and fell asleep on the living room floor of the Black house.

Sam was in her dreams again, but instead of asking her if she was hurt as he usually did, his heated voice whispered 'I want you' in her ear before he kissed her again.

She woke up covered in sweat with her heart pounding. She was certain that he had actually said it; it wasn't just part of her dream. But why? He didn't know her. He just stared at her sometimes. Jake was right, Sam was older than her. Why would he want her? She didn't know and she didn't know how to ask him. But she could hear that deep voice whispering throatily in her ear.

She was doing her shift at Newton's one Saturday when the door alarm rang and she hurried towards the front of the store. It had been a quiet night so she was pairing shoes and tidying up, waiting for Mike to come back and lock up for the night.. She saw a man wearing only a pair of athletic shorts standing with his back to her. She recognised his back and felt like running away. Those wide bare shoulders and dark, roughly cropped hair could only belong to one man. Sam.

"Get out," she said. She tried not to look at his chest but she didn't want to look at his face.

"We need to talk."

She snorted. "Nothing to talk about," she snapped at him. "Not that talking is your strong point, is it?"

"No."

Silence.

She couldn't leave and it looked like he wasn't going to. "I have to get back to a customer. You need to go."

"There are no customers."

She frowned at him. How could he know that?

He took a step towards her.

She stepped over and put the counter between them. She put her hands down on the surface to stop them shaking.

He looked at them. She got the impression he wanted to touch her, so she shifted them and held her hands in front of her body below the countertop. Clutched together.

He was still staring at where they had been.

"What do you want?" she asked in frustration.

He glanced up at her face and suddenly she knew what he wanted. He wanted to kiss her again.

"No," she said.

"No?"

"NO! No kissing."

"How do you know that was what I wanted?"

"I don't know."

"You want-"

"Don't you dare," she interrupted him. "Don't you tell me what I want. You scare Jake. You scare me."

"I know."

"Why do it, then?"

His face looked suddenly tired and worried. "He has to understand; he has to..." He didn't finish that sentence. He took a deep breath. "He'll understand, then."

"Then? After what?"

"I can't." He shook his head.

"Why did you even say anything? What's going to happen to Jake? Are you going to hurt him? You and the others?"

His head snapped up suddenly as if he had heard something that she could not. "He's coming. I-I'm sorry." He shoved something at her across the countertop and left.

She saw him jog off quickly after he exited the store. Did he not have a car? She picked up the item he had pushed at her. It was a kind of bracelet. It looked like one of those woven friendship bracelets. It was made of black and brighter red and white threads all woven and knotted together. It was quite pretty. She knew red and black were tribal colors.

Then she heard Mike Newton come in the staff door. Was he the person Sam had heard? How could he have heard him?

She put the bracelet in her pocket.

She didn't know what to do with the gift. She had a feeling that it meant something. If she wore it, people would notice; especially Jake. It was significant. She knew it, even if she couldn't say why.

Next morning, she picked at her bacon and eggs. Charlie was reading the paper. A Sunday breakfast ritual. Who could she ask about the bracelet? Not Jake; she didn't want to show it to him. She suddenly remembered that her father had virtually grown up on the tribal lands. Maybe he knew?

"Dad?"

"Humph."

"You've spent a lot of time with the Quileute over the years..."

"Yeah. I suppose."

"Do you know much about their customs?"

"Some. Why?"

"Have you ever heard of a guy giving a girl a bracelet; a woven one?"

"Oh-Ho! Really?"

"What?"

"Did Jake give you one?"

"Why would Jake give me one?"

"Coz he's crazy about you. Are you two dating?"

"Dating?" she squeaked. "What? No!"

"Oh, maybe he didn't tell you but the Quileute have a promise bracelet rather than an engagement ring."

She stood suddenly. Then just froze.

"Bells?"

She just gaped at him.

"Are you okay?"

"I have to go out."

"Ah... okay. To the rez?"

"Where are my keys?" She was just scrabbling around in her panic.

"When will you be back?"

"I don't know."

Charlie watched her with an amused look on his face as she darted back and forth nervously. She finally got herself together and out the door. Charlie chuckled, took a bite of his toast and flapped the paper out. "Guess Jake should have told her what it was, first."

She drove out to the rez. It took about forty minutes in her old truck. Her brain was spinning. An engagement bracelet? What the Hell? Where was she going? She didn't even know where Sam lived. She ended up stopping at the tourist shop where Embry's mother worked and looking up the phone book.

She found an address for A Uley but there were more than a few of them. She'd try the A listing first and then she'd have to ask. There was no S Uley.

Thankfully it was away from Jake's house. He would have seen or heard her truck and she didn't know how to tell him what she was doing out here.

As she turned into the road, the man she was looking for ran out of the forest fringing the dirt track. As per usual, he was wearing an old pair of cut off jeans and nothing else. He flagged her down. She resisted the urge to run him over.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Well, hello to you, too." She noticed he didn't say her name.

"Sorry. Hello."

She got out of the truck, leaving the motor running, fumbled in her pocket and reached down for his hand. She lifted his arm up and deposited the woven cord on his palm. "I can't take this," she said. Then she turned to get back in her truck and leave.

"Whoa, wait..." He grabbed her by the upper arm.

"No and stop grabbing me."

"Please?"

She huffed out a breath and folded her arms.

He tried to give it back to her.

"No." She pushed his hand away.

"It's just a-"

"No it's not! I asked my father what it was." She ran her hands through her hair. She was so annoyed with him. "I know what it is. I know that it means something and you just pushed it at me across the counter with no word of explanation." She was almost shouting at him in her frustration.

"We need to talk."

"There is no we."

He moved too fast; one second he was there and the next he was turning off her truck motor.

"What are you doing?"

He shook his head. "It's too loud. I can't think; it hurts."

"What is up with your hearing?"

"Nothing. That truck idles at a hundred decibels."

"No, I meant it's too good. You heard Mike before he had even come in the back door of the store on Saturday."

"We need to talk," he repeated.

"No. We don't. I don't know what's going on, but you... this is weird and odd and you are freaking me out... you can't just shove someone up against a wall and kiss them and then push an engagement bracelet at them." Her heart rate was accelerating wildly. "That is not how it's done. And you should know that, you're old enough to have dated for goodness sake." She blinked rapidly. She was losing it. "And you kissed me and-"

"Oh, no. Don't cry."

And as if he had made it happen by saying it, she burst into tears.

She flapped her hands as the tears ran down her cheeks and he stared at her helplessly. Then he reached out and just reeled her in. Grabbed her and held her against his chest. She cried. Those awful sobbing kind of tears where she couldn't breathe properly and she was trying to talk and her arms couldn't get up to wipe the tears from her face, he was holding her so tight.

He had turned them both and was leaning his back against her truck fender. He hugged her to him and shushed her, making low crooning noises. She tried to push at him but he wouldn't move. When she had calmed he let her stand up. She was still much shorter than him even with him leaning back.

His hands were resting on her hips. She was standing between his legs. She dug around in her pocket and found a torn and bedraggled tissue and used it to wipe her nose. She didn't mind standing where she was. Standing with him felt... good. She felt comforted by it, the same way that he had comforted her in the forest when she was lost. Edward had just dumped her and broken her heart and Sam had found her and carried her home. She remembered not wanting him to put her down or pass her to her father. She had liked listening to his voice as it echoed in his chest. That was weird. Right? Even now, she calmed down very quickly after her panicked sobbing.

When she could finally speak she said, "I can't even wipe my snotty nose on your shirt. Why do you never wear a shirt and why are you so overheated?"

He just stared at her and didn't answer her.

"You never say my name either," she accused.

He looked at her seriously. "Bella," he said. He said it low and throaty, he rolled the l's and it felt like he had brushed his hand down her flesh.

She shivered. "W-what was that?" she asked in a tiny voice.

He shrugged.

There was something going on; something she couldn't explain. A guy saying your name should not make you shiver. "All right, we go in the house and we talk."

"No."

"Why not?"

"That's my mother's house."

"Oh. I didn't know that. I was looking for you."

"Yes."

"So tell me here... in the sun."

"Yes. Sunlight is good."

He was still holding her between his legs and she didn't know where to put her hands. She wanted to touch him and that scared her. She folded them across her chest. She stared down at his bare feet. "You don't even have shoes on." As she looked up her eyes scanned up his body. He had a beautiful body; all long rounded muscles and ridges where most guys didn't have ridges. She made a small sigh noise.

He noticed. He got that tiny smile where the edge of his mouth twitched.

"Don't laugh at me," she said.

"You feel it."

"Feel what?"

"This." He waved a hand between them and then returned it to rest on her hip. She felt him.

"That's not an explanation." She frowned at him. She tried to think. If he could make her shiver just by saying her name, what would happen if she touched him? She stared at his muscled chest and slowly put her hand out. Her palm pressed against his super heated flesh. She felt him quiver under her touch.

"Sam?" she asked.

"Say that again. Say my name," he whispered.

"Tell me and I might say it again."

"You're blackmailing me."

"I use what I have."

That made him smile. "You're smart."

"So stop treating me like an idiot."

He inhaled deeply.

She waited.

He crouched lifted her and turned to sit her on the fender. She was closer to his height now. Her hands gripped at the top of his shoulders.

"You knew what Cullen was?"

She froze.

"Bella?"

"H-how did you..."

"I know. I know everything. You've seen me. You just need to remember."

"Seen you?" She was confused.

"They are the cold ones, just like in the tribal stories."

Jake had told her about the tribal stories when it was too cold for her to surf at La Push with her schoolmates. And Sam knew that, obviously. She blinked. Did he mean vampires were the cold ones? But that would make the tribe... "Wolves," she whispered.

"Yes."

"I saw a wolf the night when I was lost." She looked up into his serious eyes. "Did I see you?"

He put the bracelet back in her hand.

She stared at it. The black threads. Black hair. Black wolf. "You're the black wolf. The wolf that found me." She wasn't sure how she had made that leap of logic but she knew it was true. The wolf had been there snuffling at her and then Sam had been there, hoisting her up into his arms and asking her if she had been hurt. She kept dreaming of that wolf for months afterward. And Sam; she dreamt of Sam.

"Yes."

"I-" She didn't know what to say. It wasn't possible for people to turn into wolves, but then again, vampires didn't exist either and she had dated one.

He waited for her.

She was glad they were in the rare patch of sun. It warmed her and comforted her. Warmth. Like Sam was warm and comforting.

He had his eyes closed and his head held very close to the side of her head. He wasn't looking at her but it seemed to her that he was feeling her with some of his other senses. If those senses were enhanced to the level of a wolf's he could probably hear her heart beating.

"Sam?"

"Hmm?" His eyes were still closed.

The fact that she was acutely aware of him and had been for weeks, that she knew where his hands were on her body, that she shivered at his touch and the way he said her name. They had some kind of link. "Is this... connection between us something to do with the wolf?" she asked him.

"Yes."

She stared at the bracelet. She felt his thumb stroke down her lower back.

"It's cheating," she said.

"It is?"

"Yes. We have to do this properly."

"Ah... okay. You have me at a disadvantage."

"I know." She put the bracelet back in her pocket.

His eyes brightened when he saw her do that.

"Friday night," she said.

"Friday?" He said it as if it was a year away.

"Friday. You can pick me up for a date."

"But-"

"And wear a shirt and shoes, or Charlie won't let you in the front door."

"Friday is so far away," he crooned. His hand was pressing on her lower back and she was intimately aware of it. He was also inching closer to her face.

"No. We do this properly," she repeated.

"Wednesday. For coffee," he countered.

She sighed.

"I can't make it until Friday," he argued. "I'll die."

"Don't be over dramatic."

"Bella," he said and she felt goose bumps at the way he said her name. Maybe she wouldn't make it to Friday either.

"Fine. But no kissing before Friday."

"So we can kiss on Friday?"

She ignored that. "I'll wear the bracelet when it means something to me; something real."

"The magic is real."

"I don't want any shortcuts."

He studied her.

She tried to look determined. "I mean it, Sam."

He smiled. "You said my name."

"I know you don't get it and I want to explain. Last time I fell heavily from day one." She took a breath. "And it all went wrong. You saw how badly it went."

"You don't want this one to go wrong."

"No."

He touched her face. His fingertips brushed down her cheek so gently, as if they barely made contact with her skin. One fingertip brushed across her lip in that same barely there contact. She felt an ache under jaw. Oh my. Getting to Wednesday was going to be hard enough.

It took her a second to find her voice. "I-I need to go."

"Wednesday. What time?"

Charlie Swan got home early on Wednesday. He had just finished putting his gun away when he heard the doorbell.

Sam Uley was standing on his doormat. He was wearing a shirt that stretched across his chest so tightly it looked like it would split if he inhaled too much. It made him look even bigger than he already was. The jeans were clean and just holding on, but they were too short in the leg. He shifted on his feet as if his shoes were pinching. Charlie wondered just how much Sam had grown recently.

"Sam?"

"Chief Swan. I have a date with your daughter," he announced.

Charlie blinked.

Bella thundered down the stairs, and then stopped abruptly at the bottom. She stared at Sam. He took a half step into the doorway and beamed at her.

"Bella," he breathed.

"Sam," she replied.

Charlie looked between them wondering when the heck he had missed this happening. "Ah... okay." Neither of them were taking any notice of him. He could have spontaneously combusted and they wouldn't have taken their eyes off each other. "School night," he said.

"Yes, Dad."

Sam held his hand out to her. Bella took it. Their fingers interlaced as if they had been holding hands for months.

Charlie watched them leave and then went to phone Billy. They needed to go fishing.

~~~~the end~~~

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